Njaan Malayalee...

Have you ever noticed how people are very protective of their culture and language and all that? How they feel a sense of belonging to a certain place – the place where they have been born and brought up? You see it often – specially in WIMWI, when we have city versus city fights, its usually no holds barred. You hear such a lot of that… amchi Mumbai, amaar Kolkata, ente Keralam, apna Bihar… so on.

Now, being the product of two utterly different cultures – Bihari and Malayali, I didn’t really know which sector I belonged to. But normally, I’ve noticed that Keralites are much more possessive of the language, customs, overall culture – no matter where they are, whether in Kerala or not. I respect that. I guess I could be wrong, coz I haven’t seen much of other cultures as well.

Anyways, lemee tell you about this thing which happened last week.

I was supposed to be going home in the afternoon. I’d asked a friend to book tickets for me on a bus back home today, but there were no tickets available when he went yesterday. I was in Chennai, which is why I could not go myself to book my tickets. Not that I would have gotten tickets if I’d gone myself

Anyways, since he didn’t get tickets, I had to find out some other way of getting back home. Eventually, I managed to fix up a us from Bangalore (where I am right now) to Trichur (where I go when I need mommy’s food) via Coimbatore leaving here at 1:30 in the afternoon. So eventually, I was supposed to go to office in the morning, leave in the afternoon, and go home. And yes, book tickets before reaching office in the morning, if I wanted to go back home.
So when I trudged up to the travel agent’s place in the morning, having somehow managed to pull myself outta bed and gotten into a rick, planning to book a ticket to CBE, I somehow managed to get into a travel agency, where the gent sitting at the desk was speaking on the phone. I waited, and obviously heard a little of the conversation. He was speaking in Malayalam.

I debated whether to speak in Malayalam or Hindi. Hindi would make it difficult to converse – there are plenty of Mallus in Bangalore, but most I know are much more comfy with Mallu than with Hindi or English. Besides, Malayalam would actually get me to seem like a kindred spirit, and he may take pity on me, and gimme a non existent seat which he would then fix up somehow.

So, thinking all this, I somehow managed to forget myself enough to ask him… with a smile, signifying friendliness… and co regionalism… “Cheta, innu raathri Thrissur vandi ondo? (Is there a bus to Thrissur tonight?)”

Before I could rectify my faux pas (not that he knew it was a faux pas) and tell him CBE instead of TCR, he nodded… I was left like… “..ayyo, Thrissur alla… eh, ondo? (…no, not Thrissur… what, there is?)”

Looking at me incredulously, he was like “Evide povandathaado? (Where in the blooming world do you wanna get your ass to, you fool)” – okay, that’s what it sounded like, not what he said – so, looking pretty *sheepish*, I was like “Thrissur”. Now I was left wondering what would the response have been if I’d spoken in Hindi… “Err… haan shaab, hai shaab… kahan jaane ko maangta hai? Kab, kithar?” Anwyays, too late.

“Oru special vandi ondu – innu raathri 8pm – book cheyyano? (There’s a special vehince – tonight 8pm – you wanna book a seat?)”

“Athey… AC vandi aano? (Yes, is it an AC vehicle?)”

He looked at me like my nose had just transformed into an elephant’s trunk right on my face. I took that to mean that he thought I was an utter imbecile to ask such stupid questions specially when I didn’t even have a seat in the last unbooked bus to Timbuktoo where I had to get to in order to save myself from a life of utter mediocrity. Not that I still knew if this was an AC bus or not.

“Entha, AC illangil povulle? (Why, you won’t travel unless there’s an AC?)”

“Alla, angane onnum illa… (No, nothing like that…)”

“Appol book cheyyate? (Then shall I book?)”

“Athey, please… (Yes, please)”

I thought the please would soften him. He smirked like he knew my desperation. Was it that obvious? Hey, when did I get desperate even? I could go to CBE and take a different bus from there, na… only a matter of traveling about 100 more km, and three more hours. I wasn’t desperate. No, siree.

“Sheri… ethra aalkaar ondu? (Okay, how many people?)”

“Njaan maathram (Only yours truly)”

“Peru (Name)”

So I duly told him my name.

“Phone Number”

I told him that too, and added that this was an out of state number. He looked at me like I’d wasted his precious money yet again (yet again?) by making him call me. I wonder what he’d have said if I told him I was from Ahmedabad. Probably what kind of a Mallu I was, living in Ahmedabad, and booking a bus ticket from Bangalore to Thrissur, on the same day that I was to travel, and having the cheek to ask if it had an AC. He probably concluded I was a fraud who didn’t know much about Kerala and its natives. Not an altogether bad conclusion, I’d say.
Anyways, I was to report at 8pm. It turned out that this was a bus from Hosur, not Bangalore. They would arrange for transport from Bangalore to Hosur via another bus.

“Athu normal bus aanu, okay? (That’s a normal bus, okay?)” *smirking*

“Sheri, kozhappamilla (Sure, no issues)”

He sent me off smiling away to glory, as if highly amused by the fact that he’d managed to put down a desperate arrogant fraud pretending to be a Mallu. Some Mallus get a kick out of that.
I guess I WAS desperate.

Anyways, its raining now, and its 7pm and I’m sitting in Barista, and writing this. I hope it stops soon, else he’ll think that I was too proud to have come sat in his non AC bus. And he’ll smirk a lot about that too, specially while he gives my seat to another desperate guy. “Hah! Paid the money, but couldn’t bring himself down to sitting with other common people. High class bastard.”

As of now, I’m not keen for it to be an AC bus. I’ll probably freeze to death with this rain and all.